'US struck Syria right when country got a chance for peace'

MOSCOW: The United States and its allies delivered a military strike against Syria precisely at the moment when the country received a chance for a peaceful future, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said.

"Those behind it lay claim to moral leadership in this world and declare their exclusiveness and uniqueness," she said.

"In fact, it takes a very peculiar kind of uniqueness to attack Syria's capital at a time when the country has received a chance for peace at last".

"The White House says its certainty about a chemical attack by Damascus relies on the media, on reports about symptoms, videos and photos, and also on credible information." she said. "After that statement the US and all other Western media should be aware of their responsibility for what has happened. Fifteen years ago the White House used a test tube and its secretary of state. Now Washington has used the media instead of the test tube."

Attack launched to upset OPCW probe

Meanwhile the coordinator of the State Duma's group for relations with the Syrian parliament, Dmitry Sablin, told reporters on Saturday the US-led coalition dealt a strike on Syria with the aim to upset the investigation of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons in Eastern Ghouta. Sablin is currently in Damascus with a Russian delegation.

"That the strike against Syria was delivered on the day when the OPCW mission was to get down to work indicates that nobody cares about the truth. Just as it was the case with alleged Iraqi WMD, it was just a pretext," Sablin said. He is certain that the attack was launched "especially for upsetting an impartial investigation of the alleged chemical attack in Eastern Ghouta."

"We've been able to see for ourselves that Homs province, devastated by the Islamic State (outlawed in Russia) and other terrorists, has begun to restore itself. In the meantime, so-called Western humanists bring more death and destruction," he said.

Sablin advised "the Western adventurists who have unleashed aggression in the Middle East again to turn an attentive ear to the warning from the chief of Russia's General Staff Valery Gerasimov such aggression would not remain unretaliated."

The delegation Sablin leads arrived in Damascus on Friday. Before, it visited Homs and Palmyra.